Josef Newgarden gained a closing lap duel with Pato O’Ward to develop into the primary back-to-back winner of the Indianapolis 500 in 22 years on Sunday.
Newgarden’s victory capped an eventful afternoon on the Brickyard that noticed the beginning delayed by 4 hours resulting from extreme storms and the race interrupted by a number of cautions.
But the drivers managed to get in all 200 laps across the 2.5-mile oval, however solely simply with the race ending within the Indiana sundown proper earlier than the 8.15pm (1.15am GMT) curfew.
Newgarden gave the gang of over 300,000 an American winner on the US Memorial Day weekend vacation. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon was third.
“I am simply so pleased with this group,” Newgarden, who took a $440,000 bonus for successful back-to-back Indy 500s, mentioned. “They crushed it – crushed it.”
Beginning on the entrance row alongside polesitter Scott McLaughlin and 2018 Indy 500 champion Will Energy, Newgarden ran close to the entrance of the pack all day.
However on the finish the struggle got here all the way down to the last-lap shootout with O’Ward, Newgarden sweeping previous the Mexican’s Arrow McLaren to develop into simply the sixth driver to win back-to-back 500s and the primary since Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002.
Newgarden’s triumph marked group proprietor Roger Penske’s twentieth win of the ‘Biggest Spectacle in Racing’, albeit coming with a whiff of scandal.
Whilst Newgarden celebrated chugging from the standard quart of milk he took a second to hit again at critics who’ve labelled him a cheat after his victory on the season-opening IndyCar race in St Petersburg was forfeited for unlawful use of the push-to-pass function that provides drivers a horsepower enhance.
An investigation by group proprietor Penske, who additionally personal the IndyCar collection and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, resulted in Newgarden’s disqualification and sanctioning of a number of officers together with the race outfit’s president Tim Cindric and race engineer Luke Mason.
“They will say what they need, I do not even care,” Newgarden mentioned. “We labored our tails off.
“Luke, Tim, they don’t seem to be right here as we speak however they’re an enormous a part of this.”
Formulation 1 leaves Europe for the ultimate time earlier than the summer time break because the championship strikes on to Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix. Watch each session on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve from June 7-9 stay on Sky Sports activities F1, with Sunday’s race at 7pm. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership – No contract, cancel anytime